Book o' Challenges
by BlackTiger6
Summary: Challenges for any forums I'm part of will be posted here.
1. Renegades

**Challenge for Warriors of the Sea.**

 **Prompt: Write a story based on the song 'Renegades.'**

* * *

"Come on," Birdpaw called, scrambling through the thick undergrowth. "If you keep moving at this pace, we'll reach the Sun Drown place when we're as old as Morningdew!"

The gray-and-white apprentice grumbled to himself. "If _you_ keep yapping, the four clans are going to know where we've gone!" Cloudpaw pointed out, though his voice held no scorn. He darted around a tree, and narrowly avoided a bush.

"From the noise you're making, I think they already do," she teased back, stopping to wait for him with a grin. Once he caught up, she continued moving through the brush, and quickly left the clumsier apprentice behind.

Cloudpaw rolled his eyes. "At least tell me we're almost there."

"It's a day away, Cloudpaw," she laughed, "We'll get there by tomorrow at the earliest." He sighed, silently saying goodbye to a warm nest and a goodnight's sleep.

"Can I ask how you persuaded me into this again?" he muttered, climbing over a fallen tree with who-knows-what in the rotten wood.

" _You_ suggested it-"

"As a joke!"

"Besides, you wanted to do it as much as I did." Birdpaw breezed, completely indifferent to his struggles. Cloudpaw blinked. He most certainly did _not_ want to come, as far as he could recall. He was pretty sure the only reason he agreed was to spend more time with Birdpaw, but as always, she was bounding around as if she were born in the forest, not the moor they called home. He smiled, shaking his head. He would never be able to imagine her as a warrior, and as a leader even less! _Yes,_ Cloudpaw thought, humoured, _if Birdpaw was leader, we'd be finding reasons to have a party every other day._

"Are you going to come, or what?" Birdpaw asked, dropping back and waving a paw in his face to snap him out of his daze. He blinked at her, startled.

"Huh?"

"You've been standing here for about a minute," she commented, eyes wide and the faintest bit concerned. "Do you want to rest? Are you sick or something?"

He blushed beneath his fur, before shaking out his head and trotting forward pridefully. "Are you serious?" he responded lightly, a grin tugging at his lips. "I bet I'll reach the Sun Drown place before you will!"

"Not a chance, birdbrain!"


	2. What If This Storm Ends?

**Challenge for Warriors of the Sea.**

 **Prompt: Write a story based on the song 'What If This Storm Ends.'**

* * *

By the time the novelty of having an apprentice wore off, his mentor barely spared him a glance. She was always muttering to herself, eyes focused on some ghost in the distance.

He suspected she was mad.

But his parents were dead and he had no littermates. So Pikepaw learned by studying the other apprentices. He'd watch their mentors teach them the hunting crouch and all the battle moves, and, invisible in the shadows, he'd mimic them. And then, before the sun came up every morning, he would train. He would train and train and train until his legs gave out underneath him and he was gasping for breath. He would hunt until he couldn't carry anymore prey back, and then he'd go to sleep, and do it all over.

Of course, a few warriors would try to help him, on occasion. They would give him pointers and take him out on patrols. Show him the different ways to catch birds or sharks, or peel a lobster. A few would pair him off with their apprentices, or teach him new battle moves. But they never stayed, stayed to watch how good he was. How good he would become.

Because of his absence in the day, none of the apprentices talked to him much. When they did, it was only to ask where he'd been, why his mentor wasn't helping him. He never would answer. And eventually, they stopped asking. He became a ghost of a cat. Learned to walk in shadows, amber eyes peering out of the darkness when he thought no one was looking. He'd slip their minds, most of the time.

He saw his fellow apprentices fall in love. He watched countless deaths and many fights. He saw betrayals, broken hearts, faced fears and, finally, he debated leaving. No one here was his friend, only a mutual acquaintance or perhaps even someone he had never met. But he stayed. Because he was loyal. Because he was a CoveClan cat. And because, whether he liked it or not, he loved them. And perhaps, if he had been cared about enough to be taught, mentored, coached, he could have fallen in love. He would have been an idiot sometimes, and he would have played and danced and shared tongues and formed unforgettable bonds.

But he didn't.

And one day, a few minutes after the ever annoying apprentice-ceremony that had been held for a trio of kits, they attacked. Rogues, loners. Not many of them, but lethal. Pikepaw stood, and he stalked. He watched as Clan cat after rogue was either killed or incapacitated or rendered useless. And so, when a rogue wasn't looking, he sprung. Claws unsheathed and teeth bared, he battled with all the strength and skill he had acquired, no more than a shadow striking and slipping under the rogue's defenses.

He bore wounds from that battle, scars even, but he stood as the victor. He had won against a cat his denmates had lost to. So, for a moment, he closed his eyes and reveled in a feeling he had never been allowed. Pride. But then he opened his eyes, and there was the fight, so vivid and loud and splattering blood everywhere. He gave himself a moment to look over his injuries, before leaping into the fray.

His claws nearly were stained from that day, from how many times he clawed and snapped and helped drive off the intruders. By the time the rogues had all finally been subdued, dusk was dying the sky red and casting an eerie, yellow light over the waves. The ground was soaked with blood, slick to touch. The dens were in disarray, kits crying and mothers hurriedly rushing to them, making sure they were alright.

Pikepaw stood, firm and unyielding even while his wounds seeped with blood and his fur was matted. He watched the golden waves rush and lap over the beach, as if to erase that the fight had ever happened. He watched as mentors ran over to their apprentices, mates shared tongues, and the healers hastily treat everyone. He watched as the leader walked up the Carved Stone and called for him to come forward.

He walked, silent and curious, through the quiet camp until he stood below his leader. His warrior name, after hard work and loneliness and bitter pity. He was going to be a warrior. A strange, kit-like emotion flooded him. He closed his eyes curiously. Was that... yes, it most certainly was excitement. Excitement was a feeling he could only vaguely remember, but it was just like he imagined. Strong and sweet and comforting. He could almost imagine himself as a kit again, staring up at the leader he always envied. He remembered himself thinking about his mentor, dreaming about a kind, understanding cat that would stay a friend until they moved on from this life. But that was all they ever were, a wistful fantasy.

So when the leader touched noses with him, and the clan chanted his name, he didn't sink into the shadows. He didn't creep away. No, he raised his chin and walked forward, though he was hesitant in every step he took. It would take a while, to fit back in a place he never should have left. But he could, and he would, and eventually, these moons of hiding in the shadows would be all but a forgotten nightmare.

He mulled over these thoughts as he sat, listening to the crashing of the waves and watching the distant horizon. The moon slowly climbed higher and higher until it left his vision, leaving only the cold stars as light in the quiet for the next hours to come. He did grow bored, eventually, something he never thought he could do. But he was tired and his injuries throbbed, leaving little options for what he could do. So he settled in the sand and contented himself to watch, just as he always had.

And when the sun finally rose above the water, Pikeclaw turned and headed back to his clan.


	3. Sound the Bugle

**Challenge for SaberClan.**

 **Prompt: Write a story based on the song 'Sound the Bugle.'**

* * *

It was cold. Bitterly so. The wind nipped at their ears and froze their fur. But the four pushed on, snow tickling their throats with each breath they took. They could hardly see, either, through the blinding white that surrounded them. So they staggered wherever they could go, anywhere. The place they ended up in didn't matter as long as the place was _away_.

Away from that dead body, the rotting corpse they once called their mother. Away from the tracks leading anywhere but there, the ones that belonged to the father who left them to die. Away from the paradise that would forever be tainted with the blood of their family, and the massacre that killed all but the four of them.

Only when the smallest of them collapsed did they stop. Two of them started to create a hole in the snow, a shelter that they could rest in. The other licked her younger sister, and did whatever she had to to keep her alive. They crawled into the cave of sorts, curled up and pressed tightly to each other to keep warm. The elder brothers on the outside, and the sisters huddled in the middle.

None got a wink of sleep that night, a moment of rest between the shivers that racked their bodies and jaws that chattered until they hurt. So when the sun finally rose and the clouds broke and the snow stopped, they stood. Their muscles ached and their chapped skin stung. But they stood, and they looked out on the barren world, and they wandered once more.

 _They were an odd group_ , everyone who saw them would think. One, with a pelt white as the snow that surrounded them. Another with fur that blazed like a fire. The third with a golden coat, and the last with fur that was nearly as dark as the night itself. Two she-cats and two toms. But undoubtedly related, whether it be because of the shape of their face or the black stripes they all shared.

Weeks would pass, and the group would settle somewhere for a while. Learn everything that the cats living there could tell them. And then, only a few days after they arrived, they would leave, never to be saw again. Three moons. That was how long they wandered, forced to grow up ages before they should have. Forced to learn how to hunt, how to fight.

How to kill.

But just like before, it never was to last. They should've known better, that they never would be allowed to stay together. The world had already ripped apart the rest of their family, their blood. Any cat who found a place into their hearts either died or broke it.

It came suddenly, a blizzard so akin to the one they were in the day they left. It sent floods of snow - as loud as thunder - down the mountain they had taken refuge in. They ran, ran as if their lives depended on it, which they did. They couldn't outrun the snow, but they could hide. They only needed a moment, a handful of seconds. But seconds was the time before the snow caught up to them. Two were able to dive into a cave, the snow roaring over them.

Two were not so lucky.

Her brothers turned, meeting her gaze. And then they were swallowed, swept into the cascading frost. She thought to cry, to scream, to withdraw into herself. But she just closed her eyes, and held her sister while she sobbed. The next morning, they stood, numb with cold and sorrow, and they kept going. They didn't see their brothers again.

They grew older, older than their brothers had been. One would kill, the other would spare. One got into fights, the other lost them. It was a never-ending cycle, until one day, she got into a fight she didn't win. Bruised and bearing a severe wound, the white she-cat took her sister to a group of cats she heard was nearby. Her sister was still a kit, barely even five moons. So they welcomed her, they nurtured her, they taught her justice and mercy.

Whereas the white she-cat met a rogue, one who taught her what herbs to use and how to fight better. So she healed, and she learned, and she watched her sister. But when they could leave, her sister didn't want to go. She begged and pleaded to stay, and eventually, the she-cat let her, and stayed with the rogue. She met someone, someone who stole her heart and broke it in two. She killed someone, many times.

And then one day, when her heart was cold as ice, she left the rogue who had took her in. Not by choice, but to save her sister from a clan that would soon bathe in its own blood. So she stayed with her sister for a while, biding her time, waiting to see what enthralled her sister that many years ago. And she found it. Her sister had found a family, one with mothers who comforted her, fathers who would protect her. Brothers and sisters. And him.

The tom with bright eyes and a wide grin, the one who was so hopelessly in love with her. So the white she-cat closed her eyes once more. She couldn't possibly make her sister leave, not when she had everything that the paradise back at what used to be home had offered. _And, perhaps,_ she thought, _I could find that too._

Tiger watched her sister, now a warrior called Blossomflight, finally reciprocate the tom's feelings. And she fought, beside all the warriors and apprentices and leaders that came. And she fell in love, with a tom whose pelt was as black as pitch. And slowly, her dead heart began to beat once more.


End file.
